Monday, September 09, 2002

By Jennifer Kay, The Associated Press

SOLEBURY, Pa. -- Since moving into their treehouse deep in Bear Country, the Berenstain Bears have helped children for 40 years cope with first trips to the dentist, new siblings, summer camp and messy rooms.

Now, with the release of their autobiography, authors Stan and Jan Berenstain want to share a few firsts of their own -- from their first college art class together to the early meetings with Dr. Seuss that grew into more than 200 books featuring the Berenstain Bears.

"Down a Sunny Dirt Road" initially alternates chapters between Stan's and Jan's stories about their childhoods during the Depression in Philadelphia, and their admiration of each other's drawing at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. Their narrative voices blend as they become a writing and illustrating team with their marriage after Stan's return from service in World War II.

The publication of "Down a Sunny Dirt Road," due in bookstores Sept. 24, coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first Berenstain Bears book, "The Great Honey Hunt," in 1962.

The Berenstains, both 79, honed their family friendly humor drawing cartoons for The Saturday Evening Post, McCalls and Colliers. Examples of this and other pre-bear artwork will be included in a retrospective of the Berenstains curated by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., opening next month at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Bucks County.

They developed the Berenstain Bears series with children's author Theodor Geisel -- better known as Dr. Seuss, then head of children's publishing at Random House -- intending to teach children to read while entertaining them.

Jan Berenstain said the bears were chosen because of their anthropomorphic qualities.

"Bears are a tradition in children's books. They stand up and they wear clothes and they're great fun to draw. We drew them a lot as art students. We can give them the same kind of facial expressions we put on the people we draw," she said.

They still begin every Berenstain Bear book by hand. In their home studio in Bucks County, Stan Berenstain sketches covers for a DVD collection of their animated television specials. Across the room, Jan Berenstain points out paint splatters on the floor from where some of the earlier books began. More sketches line the walls and story ideas cover the tables between them. Much like the treehouse they drew for their bears, the studio and other rooms branch off from a central entryway in their wood-sided farmhouse about 50 miles north of Philadelphia.

The bears haven't changed, and neither have their readers, Stan Berenstain says.

"Kids still tell fibs and they mess up their rooms and they still throw tantrums in the supermarket," he said. "Nobody gets shot. No violence. There are problems, but they're the kind of typical family problems everyone goes through."

Past Reviews